Jomo Kwame Sundaram — Why International Financial Crises?

Raises some good questions. 

The leading international monetary economist of the post-war period, Robert Triffin, described the post-1971 arrangements as amounting to a “non-system.” Now, with the international monetary system essentially the cumulative outcome of various, sometimes contradictory and ad hoc responses to new challenges, the need for coordination is all the more urgent.

Makes a case for more concerted action now that the world is operating under a "non-system." 

I would not call it a non-system but a highly flexible system that resist simple analysis. 

The gold standard for international settlement resulted in a system that was simpler to model, but it was much more brittle, which is a reason it broke down.

TripleCrisis
Why International Financial Crises?
Jomo Kwame Sundaram

Ralph Musgrave — The non-existent shortage of safe assets

Journalists, academics and economics bloggers have recently taken to worrying about the alleged shortage of safe assets.

This alleged shortage results from the fact that a number of assets regarded as safe before the crunch are clearly no longer safe: e.g. collateralised debt obligations based on dodgy mortgages, and the debt of Euro periphery countries.

The above individuals can stop worrying. The only important consideration here is whether this alleged shortgage results in the excess saving of money, which in turn might lead to paradox of thrift unemployment. And if paradox of thrift unemployment does appear, then the solution is easy. It was spelled out by Keynes decades ago and more recently to advocates of Modern Monetary Theory: have the government / central bank machine print money and spend it into the economy (and/or cut taxes).

Problem solved. Yawn, yawn.

Ralphonomics
The non-existent shortage of safe assets
Ralph Musgrave